Bus firm calls for age discrimination law change after crash involving 77 year old driver which killed two

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A bus firm has suggested age discrimination laws may have been partially responsible for a crash involving a 77-year-old driver who had a worked a 75 hour week before a crash which killed two people.

The company was given what is believed to be a record fine of £2.3m for failing to act on safety warnings about a driver involved in a fatal bus crash.

The managing director of the company, owned by Stagecoach, has suggested there should be a statutory maximum legal age for drivers of buses and other heavy vehicles - and hinted that age discrimination laws mean bosses cannot ask bus drivers to retire for reasons relating to their age.

Midland Red (South) had pleaded guilty to two offences contrary to the Health and Safety at Work Act, by permitting relief driver Kailash Chander to continue working despite what a judge called "repeated" warnings about his driving.

Chander, who was 77, made a "fundamentally and tragically fatal error" by mistakenly hitting the accelerator and crashing into Sainsbury's in Coventry city centre at 20mph on October 3 2015.

His actions led to the deaths of seven-year-old passenger Rowan Fitzgerald, who was sitting on the top deck of Chander's vehicle, and 76-year-old pedestrian Dora Hancox.

The former bus driver was given a two-year supervision order by a judge at a sentencing hearing at Birmingham Crown Court on Tuesday, after he was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial due to dementia.

Judge Paul Farrer QC fined the company for its “significant” failings and said it should not have let him get behind the wheel.

The judge said: "If the company had followed the recommendations of its own assessor it is inconceivable they'd have permitted a 77-year-old man to drive in the circumstance.

"This was to be the sixth consecutive working day and he had worked 75 hours in the previous working week."

Speaking after the hearing, Midland Red managing director Phil Medlicott said: “"We know and fully accept that there were a number of failings at our company and we bear the weight of our responsibility for this terrible tragedy.

"That's why we made early guilty pleas.

"While we met in full all the regulations around driver working hours and had all of the relevant checks in place, our own detailed policies were not followed as closely as they should have been.

"I am a former bus driver myself and I believe this case also has important lessons for the wider bus industry, as well as for those responsible for drafting and applying employment law.

"In particular, we support a review of how current age discrimination law impacts specific roles with key safety considerations.

"This includes whether there should be a statutory maximum legal age limit for drivers of buses and other heavy vehicles.

"Our parent company, Stagecoach, is working with our industry partners to establish a consistent approach by government on these issues.”